


To the Moon and Back

by Mighty_Ant



Series: Just Us Ducks [2]
Category: Darkwing Duck (Cartoon 1991), Disney Duck Universe, DuckTales (Cartoon 2017), PKNA - Paperinik New Adventures
Genre: Angst and Humor, Bringing DA into DT17, Canon-Typical Violence, Donald gets to be the badass we all know he is, Lunaris is the worst and I will write him as such, Moonvasion AU, Non-Graphic Violence, Officer Cabrera is superhero Team Mom, Penumbra deserved better, S.H.U.S.H. is the other organization without a cool acronym
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:01:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22537447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mighty_Ant/pseuds/Mighty_Ant
Summary: Donald Duck gets stranded on the moon.The Duck Avenger returns to Earth.
Series: Just Us Ducks [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1804429
Comments: 49
Kudos: 491





	1. Just Don't Call Me Late For Dinner

**Author's Note:**

> This story is a tie-in to my other DA/DT story, [A Mother's Intuition](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20532869/)  
> though it's not required reading. 
> 
> Special thanks to @transdonaldduck for commissioning me!

_ Imagine a monster out of your worst nightmare.  _

_ Imagine this monster towers over you at a stature of eight feet, with limbs as thin as a child’s but three times as long as a man’s. It has wide palms and spidery fingers that belie strength capable crushing bone and stone. Imagine that this monster has a mouth of serrated teeth coated in spittle that salivates when it’s on the hunt, that its breath stinks of corpses left out to decay.  _

_ Donald doesn’t have to imagine this monster because it’s staring him in the face, pinning him against the floor. His left arm is useless and splintered under the Evronian’s grip and the other, encased in his X-Transformer shield, he isn’t capable of moving.  _

_ Zargon is the monster’s name and he is the only one of his kind left on Earth.  _

_ “Give in, Avenger,” it hisses in a voice that warbles and shrieks. “Stop fighting. Accept the will of Evron and know peace.” _

_ “Get the hell off me,” Donald grits out, straining fiercely against Zargon’s iron hold.  _

_ “So much anger,” it says liltingly. “So much pain. Free will is a curse, Earthling. Surrender to the cool flame and your pain will end.” _

_ “You want flames?” Donald says, laughing agitatedly from blood loss and pain. He activates a hidden mechanism on his X-Transformer shield and a gush of fire emits from a flamethrower that he convinced Uno to install just a week ago. He’ll have to remember to thank him.  _

_ Zargon’s scream is like nails on chalkboard as the fire arcs up his body, catching fast. He rears back, releasing Donald, who scrambles to his feet, dragging his limp, broken arm behind him. Zargon catches Donald in his flailing and sends him careening into the opposite wall.  _

_ Donald hits his head hard and his world goes dark to the sound of the monster’s howls as it burns and burns and flees.  _

  
  


_ “I’m sorry that it has to be this way, Avenger.” _

_ “Oh, you’re  _ sorry?  _ I guess that makes everything okay then,” Donald retorts mockingly. His left arm hangs heavy and useless in a cast and sling as he glares at the elderly bespectacled owl behind the desk in front of him.  _

_ “Avenger,” the owl sighs.  _

_ “This was the Evronians’  _ second  _ attempt, Director,” Donald snarls. “We’ve been lucky that they’ve only sent small scouting parties. Next time that might not be the case. People need to know what’s going on before we find ourself facing a planet-wide invasion!” _

_ Director J. Gander Hooter shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Duck Avenger. Really, I am. But we cannot risk the sort of panic an announcement like you’re proposing would incite. There are no Evronians left on the planet. You did that, my friend, and at great personal risk. Know that the Earth is safe because of you.”  _

_ Hooter pulls his glasses off the end of his beak, considering them in his hands. “I know that since your debut you have had a...contentious relationship with the press,” he says carefully. “And that this coverup will not help your image.” _

_ “Content—Director, the city  _ hates  _ me,” Donald says incredulously. “I’m an embarrassment. The news only says so every night. This coverup will destroy any credibility I had left.” _

_ “It’s the way things have to be,” Hooter says gravely as he returns his glasses to his beak. “I’m sor—” _

_ Donald cuts him off. “Y’know what? Save your sorries, Director. It’s fine. It probably wouldn’t have changed anyone’s mind about me anyway. Hell, I could save the world from a full blown alien invasion and I’d still be the Dunce Avenger to them.”  _

  
  
  


Donald put the Duck Avenger away ten years ago. 

Hung up the cape, boxed up the gadgets, sealed the 151st floor of Ducklair Tower. His voice modulator he pitched off the side of the houseboat in a fit of grief and misdirected anger (big surprise) in the early days of Della’s disappearance. He had three newly hatched infants sleeping in a hastily constructed crib that he would need to test the integrity of for the third time, and he buried the Duck Avenger without fanfare so that he could move on with his life. 

Too bad the rest of the world didn’t have any respect for the dead. 

Angus Fangus from Channel 00, never his biggest fan (read: his most vitriolic critic), spent the first week following his disappearance listing every mistake, every bit of property damage and juvenile tomfoolery the Duck Avenger had ever committed. In a week Angus had razed to the ground what Donald had spent a third of his life building up. 

It had been fun and games at the start, a way to get back at the Billionaire’s Club as the city staggered under the weight of corruption. The hero gig came at him unexpectedly and with all the force of an oncoming train. From the Honk Street bodega holdup and the Phantom Blot’s kidnapping of Scrooge, to the Rosa Tower arson, he solved cases and stopped crimes one after another. All of a sudden he wasn’t just mocking the city’s elite but putting away everyday criminals, then supervillains, then aliens and he realized that maybe he had a knack for this hero stuff after all. 

Not that the news or the police seemed to think so. Nevermind the blood, sweat, and more sweat he put into keeping the city safe since before he was even old enough to vote. His achievements went ignored and his screwups flaunted in high definition on the nightly news, and Donald almost couldn’t blame ordinary people for hating him if that was all they saw of him. He’d probably think he was an idiot too. 

Not that it mattered. Let them beat a dead horse, drag the Duck Avenger’s name through the mud if it made them feel better about themselves. That life as he knew it was over. 

Uno was long gone. Della was lost to space, as good as dead, and Scrooge was the reason why. Donald had a houseboat and a sack of Spanish gold to his name and he’d just become the single parent of three. 

Worrying about the Duck Avenger’s legacy was a joke in of itself. 

Then, eleven years later, he found himself stranded on the moon. 

  
  
  


“Is that...is that  _ you?”  _

Penumbra’s shock is well-earned. In Lunaris’ secret war room, where a holographic model of the Earth spins and countless dossiers on his family’s enemies and allies line the walls, the old newsreel is somehow the strangest thing here. 

It’s footage of the Duck Avenger fighting half a dozen Evronians during their second, failed invasion of Earth with the caption  _ Dunce Avenger Almost Levels a City Block Fighting Costumed Criminals _ . Only he, Uno, and a select few S.H.U.S.H. higher ups knew the Evronians were actual aliens—a considerable amount of work had gone into convincing the public that it had been a hoax. 

Donald is still muzzled, an indignity he hopes to make Lunaris pay for in kind, so he settles for a distracted sort of nod. His family tree is displayed above him with his image crossed out in glaring red, and the globe has various points strategically targeted; coupled with the dozens of half built ships he saw through the window of the train, this invasion is shaping up to be the worst the Earth has seen yet. 

Penumbra, his erstwhile companion and supposed roommate of Della, stares at him like she’s seeing him for the first time. After a moment, she starts messing with the controls. His newsreel is replaced by another and Donald recognizes Roxanne Featherly’s voice. 

“We’re getting a transmission from Earth,” Penumbra says. She realizes the implication at the same time he does. If a signal can be received, then perhaps a signal can be sent out. 

She’s barely handed him the transmitter and pointed him to the top of the massive gold cannon before she’s collapsed on the ground, convulsing as electricity arcs through her body. 

Donald turns her over and sees the clasp above her uniform’s medallion blinking red. An insidious deception, hiding in plain sight. 

Lunaris looms over them, ominous as a monolith, with the casual step of a man who knows he has nothing to lose. He talks and talks and _ talks, _ as in love with the sound of his own voice as he is convinced of his own genius. He’s cocky, the worst kind of confidence, and the most dangerous. 

Donald is out of practice bantering with supervillains, nevermind the gold muzzle that would make any such attempt rather redundant. Still, he makes do. 

“The moon isn’t a planet,” he says, more garbled than usual, even after the disgrace of being tripped like a schoolchild. He imagines that Della, wherever she is, would be proud of him for the attempt. 

But Lunaris is strong. The ease with which he picks up Donald and throws him, bodily, onto the cannon reminds him of Storkules’ unlimited reserve of power. Not that Lunaris is anywhere near able to nudge mountains with his pinkie finger, thank Godfrey, but his inhuman strength in reminiscent of other supernatural creatures Donald has experience with. 

In sum: Donald’s in trouble. 

And to make matters worse Lunaris  _ keeps talking.  _

“Admiring my handiwork, Donald Duck?” he asks, after following him atop the massive gold cannon. The deep bass of his voice is smooth with snakeoil smugness. “Or should I call you the Duck Avenger?” 

_ Just don’t call me late for dinner,  _ is what the Duck Avenger would’ve said. Donald, stranded on the moon for a week, held captive by aliens (again), gagged, beaten and starved and imprisoned Donald? He just growls. 

Lunaris laughs. 

“I have to admit, at first I believed what the other Earthers said about you,” he says as he steadily advances. “That you were a costumed oaf. A joke. But then I saw you battling Evronians, the scourge of the galaxy, without a single, idiotic Earther the wiser and I understood the truth.” 

Lunaris smiles. It isn’t a pretty sight. 

“You are the people of Earth’s champion. Their unsung, forgotten hero. Nephew of Scrooge McDuck, brother to Della. You know, had you remained on Earth, you might have actually posed a threat to my invasion. Instead fate delivered you to me, defenseless, weaponless, why, practically gift wrapped.”

Lunaris gestures at the glowing blue images of his kids, smiling brightly and without mischief. The thought of how Lunaris had even gotten ahold of their photographs terrifies him. 

“Scrooge McDuck has many enemies but their attacks against him always end in failure,” he says, as casually as one discussing the weather. “Even Magica Despell’s so-called ‘shadow war’ was an embarrassment. No, the way to beat you Earthers is by breaking your spirit. That’s why my original plan was to kill the children first.”

A rushing sound fills Donald’s head, like bees, like a howling wind, like the roar of the ocean all at once, cacophonous and numbing. His body begins to burn as though it’s been set aflame and  _ Lunaris. Is. still. Talking.  _

“What’s that foolish saying of yours? ‘Family is the greatest strength of all?’ Well, this time it shall be your greatest weakness. I will hold your death over your family’s heads and then I will go after your children. Say goodbye to Hubert, Dewford, Llewellyn, and Webbigail—”

Donald doesn’t let him finish. Rage builds in his chest like a force of nature, a pressure great enough to crack his ribs from the inside out. He grits his teeth so hard they crack and the gold clasp around his beak splinters and shatters with the force of his furious explosion.

He runs at Lunaris with fists flying and it’s like punching granite, but he’s beyond letting that deter him. 

“You don’t get to say their names,” Donald seethes as he jabs Lunaris in his throat to silence his venomous tongue. His movements are smooth in his anger, focused, and he’s battled foes on adventures with the kids but he hasn’t fought like his since he was the Duck Avenger. He never realized how much he missed it until now. 

When Lunaris’ hand instinctively goes to his throat, Donald turns and elbows him in the ribs. Then he grabs Lunaris’ other arm, raised in anticipation of another attack and leverages Lunaris’ weight against him. Donald flips him over his shoulder and onto the gleaming, unforgiving surface of the cannon’s bulwark. 

Donald has his opening to run to the top of the cannon and send a transmission warning his family of the coming invasion. The only catch—it’s a one-way mission. 

Lunaris will be waiting for him and the invasion will happen anyway because Penumbra has been branded a traitor, Donald has no way of disabling the ships, and the Moonlanders are too blinded by fear to question their orders. There’s nothing he can do to stop it now. 

Donald knows that he’ll be more useful to his family alive than dead. And so will Penumbra. 

Decision made, he runs for the base of the cannon. Or at least he tries to. 

Lunaris tackles him after his first step, sending them into an uncoordinated tumble. Donald ends up on his back, mere inches from the opening into the shuttle that would crush his bones and boil his blood if he were launched back to Earth inside of it. Lunaris lands on top of him, slamming his hands against the bulwark on the either side of Donald’s head. 

“You will not escape me, Donald Duck,” he spits, his smug smile nowhere to be seen. “You will die and so will your pathetic children and anyone else who dares question the might of the moon.”

Donald is bruised and aching, terrified and starving, and he’s certain that his beak is cracked from the force he exerted to break the gold clasp. Nevertheless, he grins. 

“Y’know, I never answered your question, Baldy,” he says. Jerking forward, he smashes the top of his head against Lunaris’ face. When the general rears back with a cry, Donald plants his foot in the center of his chest. 

“You can call me the Duck Avenger.” 

Leaning back, he pushes Lunaris over his head and sends him tumbling into the shuttle opening. 

The hatch closes behind Lunaris of its own accord, and for a second Donald thinks that he’s somehow started the launch sequence and sentenced Lunaris to his death. While it would almost guarantee the safety of the Earth, it isn’t what Donald intended. He’s no killer.

Back on the ground, a throat clears.

Penumbra waves at him when he turns to look, hunched over by the controls to the cannon. “You’re welcome,” she shouts, cupping her hands around her mouth to be heard from across the cavernous chamber. 

The hatch trembles from within under the force of Lunaris’ blows and his roars, while muffled, are inscened. 

“New plan. We need to get out of here,” Penumbra says, bracing herself against the nearest console in order to stand. “Lunaris will call for reinforcements. We’ll be facing a firing squad unless we can get away from the base.”

“No time to lose then,” Donald replies. 

He slides down the remainder of the cannon and makes the leap back to the base platform. Only staggering a little on the landing, he hurries to Penumbra’s side and slings her arm across his shoulders and supports her weight with an arm around her waist. 

“Tell anyone about this and you die,” she mutters through gritted teeth as they hobble over to the exit. 

“Escape first, kill me later, Penny,” he retorts, slapping at the alien _ (ha) _ door controls so they can get out of Lunaris’ war room. 

“Ugh,” she says, with feeling. “Another one.”

The winding, identical halls of Tranquility Base greet them as they step through the doors. Donald’s mind spins a hundred miles an hour, cycling through every escape attempt he can think of. An alarm begins to sound over their heads and the hall fills with pulsing red light. 

He gets an idea.

“Is the Spear of Selene still where I crashed it?” he asks. “Out in the middle of nowhere?”

“Yes,” Penumbra answers. “Why?”

“Because we’re gonna see if we can do in a month what it took Della ten years to do.”

  
  
  


Using Della’s instruction manual, they spend a month repairing the Spear of Selene to the best of their abilities. 

Before takeoff, Donald puts his new gold armor on over his torn sailor suit. What was originally a Moonlander’s uniform has been retrofitted to the best of his ability to resemble his Duck Avenger armor, mask and all. Coupled with his cobbled together, but surprisingly functional, X-Transformer Shield 2.0, he almost doesn’t recognize himself as Donald Duck. 

Penumbra takes one look at him and laughs longer than he’s ever heard. “You look ridiculous,” she says. 

“Thanks,” he replies dryly. “Gold was never my color anyway.”

“Definitely not.”

They break through the atmosphere just in time to see Lunaris’ planetary engine flicker into existence in the night sky over the Money Bin. 

“That’s where he’ll be,” Penumbra says as she guides the Spear in close. “Hiding behind the biggest gun around.”

She glares through the canopy at the monstrous gold ship, so tall that it pierces the clouds. After a moment, she tears her gaze away long enough to give Donald an expectant look. Her hand hovers over the eject button. “You ready, Avenger?”

“Nope,” Donald says. “Now launch me.”

“Good luck,” she says, and slams her hand down. 

“You too,” he means to say, but the canopy bursts open above them and he’s thrown, seat and all, out of the Spear of Selene. 

He doesn’t wait for his parachute to engage before he activates the rocket on his X-Transformer Shield 2.0 and cuts through the chair’s restraints. He hovers in midair long enough to watch in satisfaction as Penumbra directs the Spear toward the bridge of the planetary engine. Confident that she has things well in hand, Donald engages his rocket’s boosters and soars towards Duckburg. 

Right away he sees evidence of the Moonlanders’ invasion. Rubble litters the desolate, darkened streets, crushing cars and decimating glass storefronts. There are vehicles in flames and the charred remains of others, and every few blocks a gleaming, gold duplicate of the Spear of Selene looms taller than many of the surrounding buildings. 

Sound carries from above and Donald follows it to Killmotor Hill. As he approaches, he hears shouts and the twang of blasterfire growing louder. Out of the darkness, a battlefield emerges on the road winding up to McDuck Mansion. 

Nearly three dozen Moonlanders face off against what must be the remains of Scrooge’s forces: Gizmoduck, Beakley, Gyro, with a handful of others huddled behind an overturned hunk of rubble, either wounded or tending to the wounded. 

He sees no sign of Scrooge or Della or the kids and that realization freezes Donald’s blood even as he rockets toward the battle at full speed. For the moment his worries will have to wait, lest he allow Duckburg’s only fighting force be overrun, or worse, before Penumbra gets her message out. 

The firefight is in blazing, lighting the night with flashes of gold. A Moonlander screams as Gizmoduck breaks rank to throw them over the side of the hill and punch another into the treeline. Donald is scanning for an opening when he sees the slight figure of a woman on Gizmoduck’s six, a gun in her hand and her head turned in the opposite direction of the Moonlander advancing on her from the side. 

Donald drops between them, extending his shield before he’s even hit the ground. The gold alloy plating is resistant to the Moonlanders’ blasters and is hardly scorched, but the sound it makes is like thunder. 

“Who the heck are you?!” Gizmoduck demands as he extends his arm and knocks the Moonlander unconscious with a single punch.

Donald knows he can’t speak without giving away his identity. Still, he glances back on instinct and finds himself staring at a familiar face. A face he hasn’t seen in over a decade but looks back at him, just as shocked. 

When the nuisance known as the Duck Avenger first got on the police’s radar, there was one officer, a beat cop, who was keener than the rest of her coworkers. She was assigned to the task force charged with arrestin him and while she was excellent at finding him she never tried very hard at the arresting part. 

As the Duck Avenger, he’s spoken to her once. She chased him onto a rainy rooftop after the Rosa Tower arson just to have a conversation. As Donald Duck, they met when he brought her lost nine year old son back home. 

And now, Officer Gloria Cabrera is the person he just saved. 

Gizmoduck looms behind her in a way Donald recognizes as fiercely protective, even with the battle that continues raging around them. It’s strange equating the crazy-haired little kid he met in the park with Duckburg’s greatest hero, clad in hulking armor and an inscrutable visor. Fenton frowns in a way that’s reminiscent of his mother. 

Just his luck—a family of superheroes. 

“Long time no see,” Cabrera says, smiling, like it’s been a few weeks and not a few years. 

A second energy blast ricochets off his shield and a third bounces off Gizmoduck’s shoulder. Despite this, Donald finds himself smiling back. In lieu of a proper response, he nods at her. 

“Ma—I mean, Officer Cabrera, who is this?” Gizmoduck stammers. “Who are you?” he asks, in a much deeper voice. 

Donald ignores Gizmoduck in favor of his shield. Knowing that he would be facing off against her people, Penumbra had outfitted him with something that would allow him to incapacitate, rather than harm them. With so many lives at stake this is the ideal time to deploy it. 

Pressing a single button, his shield emits an EMP blast that fries the Moonlanders’ guns. Many of them cry out and drop their weapons as they spark in their hands, and within the span of seconds the Moonlanders that first outnumbered them are rendered defenseless. Gizmoduck wastes no time in producing several lengths of rope with which to restrain them. To aid his efforts, he offers some to his mother, Mrs. Beakley, and all those who remain standing. 

“I have so many questions,” Gizmoduck exclaims. “That’s a replica of the Duck Avenger’s shield, isn’t it? Are you the real Duck Avenger? Where have you been all this time? Everyone thought you were dead! Were you on the moon and if so why? Where did you get tech like that—”

The air crackles with the sound of an incoming transmission. But not from any of them—it’s coming from the Moonlanders’ communicators. 

_“This is Lieutenant Penumbra with a message for my fellow Moonlanders! You are being deceived._ _Lunaris lied when he told us the Earth had any hostile intentions toward us. It is_ we _who are the invaders.”_

That’s Donald’s cue to take his leave. Tossing a sloppy salute Cabrera’s way, he engages his shield’s rocket. 

“Hey, wait!” Gizmoduck cries. “I’m going to have to debrief you! Duck Avenger, or-or whoever you are, get back here!”

Donald doesn’t turn back and Gizmoduck doesn’t follow, clearly as dedicated to protocol as Donald isn’t. He has a family to find and a Moonlander general to help mutiny, so humoring Duckburg’s golden boy ranks fairly low on his list of priorities. 

Though he had to admit, hearing someone calling after him in frustration and rage is as good a welcome home as any.

  
  
  
  


Months go by. 

When he isn’t getting dragged out on some whirlwind adventure, Donald goes on patrol most nights. He’s out early today because the kids were hosting a sleepover and being out of the mansion helps him think, far away from the still haunted gaze of an uncle and the almost overwhelming presence of a sister long thought dead. Plus, the view of the sunset from the roof of the bodega is nothing short of spectacular. 

For a brief golden moment, Donald is seventeen years old again. He can almost hear Uno nattering away in his ear, the way he misses so. His armor almost feels blocky and awkward, as though compensating for a teenage body with room still to grow. His conscience is almost light, weighed down only by the thoughts of his next prank on City Hall, catching the culprit behind the First Street Bank robbery, and what foolhardy adventure he’ll have to keep Della and Scrooge safe on next. 

For the barest sliver of a moment, he is unburdened by memories of the Evronians, of Della’s terrified expression on a too small screen and the ruthless burst of darkness and static that followed. He doesn’t see his nephews grow up without their mother and he doesn’t leave Scrooge to rot in a big, empty house. He doesn’t strand himself on the moon where a madman crosses out his children’s faces and tells him that he plans to kill them with a smile on his face. 

On account of this brief moment, he almost isn’t surprised by the presence at his back, in the same place where they met nearly two decades ago.  _ Almost  _ being the key word. 

“I guess criminals do return to the scene of the crime,” Officer Cabrera says. 

“Ah!” Donald yelps, and almost falls off the roof. 

Cabrera laughs. “I see that you got your voice back.”

It’s not just his voice that’s returned, deep and smooth and sonorous, courtesy of the extra modulators he left behind in Ducklair Tower. His armor had been upgraded to be more durable than ever, and his original X-Transformer gleams on his arm like new. 

None of that makes him feel any less like the bumbling seventeen year old he was when they first met, and not in a good way. 

“I see that the years are catching up with you,” he grouses, throwing a dirty look over his shoulder. “And for your information, we met here  _ after  _ the Rosa Tower arson. Which I wasn’t responsible for.”

She shrugs as she takes a seat beside him. “A lot of people thought you might’ve been.”

“Well a lot of people aren’t too bright.”

“No, they are not,” she replies with a small sigh. 

The bodega isn’t particularly tall, but their view of the bay is unobstructed. Before their eyes, the waves dull to silver as the sun illuminates the horizon in one final burst of orange brilliance. 

Cabrera turns to him, the contrasting shadows sharp on her face. “Avenger,” she says, nearly making him lose his balance again. He still isn’t entirely accustomed to hearing his old title. “Where have you been all this time?” she asks. 

“I was abducted,” Donald admits. “Sort of.”

“For  _ ten years?” _

Donald bursts into startled laughter. “What? No! Sorry, no. Just recently. It was the closest thing I’ve had to a vacation in the last ten years.” 

Cabrera tilts her head with a raised brow, looking amused. “There are people who think you were in league with the Moonlanders on account of your gold clothes.”

A familiar frustration wells up in Donald like a reopened wound. “Yeah well, like I said, a lot of people aren’t too bright. I was stranded on the moon for a month. My family thought I was dead.”

Cabrera’s features soften. “You have a family?” 

Frowning, he turns back to face the bay. He’s forgotten how to mind himself. Though time has passed and he trusts Cabrera, caution has always been the virtue of his profession. 

“You know,” she says slowly, drawing Donald’s attention back to her. “This whole Moonvasion thing has got me thinking about that incident fifteen years ago, where you wrecked a city block to get some criminals dressed as aliens.”

Donald stiffens at the memory of gleaming fangs, rasping laughter and a flaring pain in his left arm. There’s no way Cabrera doesn’t notice, but her acknowledgement is only evident in the gentling of her voice. 

“They were the real thing, weren’t they? You fought actual aliens and covered it up.”

_ “Dunce Avenger _ ,” Donald says, rubbing his left arm with a wry smile. “I remember the news report. Classic Angus Fangus alliteration.” 

“You let the city think you were an idiot,” Cabrea presses. “You let everyone hate you.”

Donald drops his hands into his lap. “It had to be done,” he says. “The public had never received confirmation of extraterrestrial life. Our options were to tell everyone that first contact was an ancient alien race trying to enslave the entire planet and brainwash everyone into their army  _ or _ ...letting them believe that none of it was real. That it was just the Dunce Avenger making a mess of things as usual.” 

The sun vanishes below the horizon, leaving behind the suggestion of golden light in the swiftly darkening sky. Streetlights flicker on beneath them. 

“Thank you,” Cabrera says. 

He barks a startled laugh. “What?”

She shrugs, a smile playing at the corner of her beak. “If no one else is going to bother saying it.”

“Yeah, well,” he retorts but trails off when no witty rejoinder comes to mind. Self-consciousness crawls up the back of his neck like it hasn’t done since he was a teenager. His nostalgic musings no longer seem so golden and all he remembers is the scorn, the bruises and the feeling of failure even when he’d succeeded. Part of him is itching to run, to engage his X-Transformer Shield and leave this roof and all the old memories behind. 

Cabrera nudges him with her arm, diffusing the tension between them with a fond look. “Have you made any friends since you’ve been back?” she asks. 

It’s strange, having someone know him as the Duck Avenger. For years, the only person who held that honor was Uno but now he’s nothing but a memory, a handful of dark screens in empty rooms. Donald finds he doesn’t mind adding Cabrera to the list. 

“Well I reacquainted myself with the rest of the police force,” he replies grudgingly. “They don’t seem to know what to make of me.”

“They’re not the only ones.”

“Oh, and I met Darkwing Duck,” he recalls

“That weird purple guy from St. Canard? He’s a rookie, isn’t he?”

“No more than Gizmoduck,” Donald says. “He knows what he’s doing, he’s just a little...full of himself. He’s got a whole gimmick. It’s not half bad.”

“Uh huh,” Cabrera responds. “And what did you do to insult him?”

Donald ducks his head with a chuckle. “I may have insinuated that he was Gizmoduck’s sidekick. And stolen one of his smoke bombs.”

“Did no one teach you play nice with other kids?” Cabrera asks, expression wry. 

“The opposite, really,” Donald admits, smiling as he thinks of Scrooge’s veritable rogue’s gallery. 

Cabrera rolls her eyes. “Anyone else you’ve annoyed that I should know about?”

“I don’t think your son likes me very much,” he replies. 

In a testament to Cabrera’s years of experience on the force, she only blinks at his indirect admission. But the surprise melts off her face like the sun beneath the waves of Duckburg Bay.

“Nobody likes you. I thought you’d be used to that by now,  _ chamaco.” _


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't end this without a classic superhero team-up

Over the last decade, he’s been too distracted to realize how much he missed being the Duck Avenger. Preoccupied with his grief, with keeping a roof over the heads of Della’s children, keeping them fed and happy and _safe_ (and along the way realizing that they were as much his as they were hers). Back when they were alone in the world, living on a creaking houseboat, it had been irresponsible to reminisce over a life lived in danger

Now Della’s back, miraculously alive and desperate to make up for lost time. And because they're as much his kids as they are hers, Donald is happy to let her slowly take on the responsibilities of being a parent. Of course, now that his life isn’t consumed with obsessive over-protectiveness, he finds himself with a great deal more free time on his hands. At the same time, the moonvasion seems to trigger a criminal awakening in the city as new threats begin sprouting, persistent as weeds. Donning the cape and cowl once more seems the obvious solution. 

But Donald never would’ve guessed that this time he’d have company. 

  
  
  


The Duck Avenger used to be a consultant with S.H.U.S.H. before he dropped off the face of the Earth. Uno set it all up; he fielding Donald's calls and brought the more important, world-threatening cases to his attention. He hadn’t wanted Donald to be alone in the field, though it was usually a hope he maintained in vain. 

Now it seems the solo vigilante act will be his only option. He burned his fair share of bridges following the second Evronian incursion, as furious as he’d been at being reduced to nothing more than a dangerous moron in the eyes of the press. Even after his very public return, he expects S.H.U.S.H. wouldn't touch him with a ten foot pole much less reach out to him. 

He expects it even less six months after moonvasion, the call lighting up his central monitor one dreary afternoon. It's almost enough to make him regret reopening the 151st floor of Ducklair Tower as his headquarters if it’s this easy for old colleagues to contact him. It still doesn’t feel right to see the main screen illuminate with an incoming communication without Uno appearing to answer it. 

Still, against his better judgement, he accepts the call. 

The feed flickers once before the visage of an elderly owl fills the screen. Donald’s surprise is only half faked. “Director Hooter,” he says, his voice modulator always active when he’s in costume, “My goodness, you’re still alive. And you somehow still have my number.”

“Hello, Avenger,” Hooter says, grave as ever. “While it’s wonderful to have you back I’m afraid this isn’t a social call.” 

Donald takes a seat in his favorite plush chair, kicking his feet up on the console. “Need me to fight some more aliens and help you with the cover up? I’m afraid the cat's outta the bag on that one. Kinda crazy how pointless all that was, huh?”

“This is serious, Avenger." Hooter's familiar chastisement lacks any heat, betraying his nervousness. “It’s F.O.W.L.”

Donald drops his feet back on the ground, along with his stomach. “They’ve resurfaced?” he demands. Has he really been out of the game for so long that F.O.W.L. recovered enough to crawl out of the hole he helped throw them down in the first place? 

“I don’t think they were ever really gone,” Hooter replies, and isn't that a thousand times worse. “They’ve sent one of their top agents to raid one of our high security weapons vaults. Some of our most dangerous experimental tech is housed there. If F.O.W.L. were to get their hands on any of it many, many innocent people could die.”

Donald quickly stops to think about where the kids are and relaxes slightly when it comes back to him. All four of them are well out of the way in the Galapajaros with Scrooge and Della, searching for some legendary tortoise with a diamond-encrusted shell.

“What are you doing about it?” he asks, staring hard at Hooter's face on the screen. 

“Darkwing Duck and Gizmoduck were en route but we’ve lost contact. We fear Gizmoduck may have been captured, and Darkwing…” Hooter hesitates. “He’s been compromised.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Just before they arrived at the warehouse we received a ransom note from Ammonia Pine,” says Hooter. “A child has been kidnapped. Avenger, we need you to infiltrate—”

Donald cuts him off at once. “Where’s the kid?” 

“We don’t—”

“Send me all the information you have on them,” Donald says succinctly, already opening channels to the mansion and the Cabrera residence. “And tell me where this warehouse is. It's high time F.O.W.L. reckoned with the diabolical Duck Avenger.”

  
  
  


Donald met Darkwing Duck exactly once before. 

There was a jewelry store robbery. Not exactly Donald’s MO, but it had been a slow week. He had the Beagle Boy (low tier, hardly much of a rap sheet yet) cornered in an alley two blocks away from the store when there was an explosion of purple smoke and a voice announcing dramatically out of the dark that it was “the terror that flaps in the night! The wrinkled dollar bill in the vending machine of crime!”

By the time the smoke cleared, Donald had already hogtied the Beagle Boy and retrieved the bag of stolen jewelry. To say that Darkwing Duck was displeased would be an understatement.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded as Donald dragged the struggling Beagle Boy to the mouth of the alley. “This was my crime scene!”

“I didn’t see your name on it,” Donald replied. He stuck two fingers in his beak and whistled to get the attention of the cops still stationed outside the smashed front of the jewelry store. 

“It fell under my jurisdiction,” Darkwing countered. He followed Donald up onto the roof of the adjacent building after the Beagle Boy and the bag of stolen jewelry had been left behind for the police. “You’re in St. Canard right now, pal.”

“Really? Hadn’t noticed.”

Darkwing stepped in front of Donald before he could deploy his shield and fly away from their conversation. “Y’know, Gizmoduck told me you were back.” 

“Oh yeah?” Donald resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “What else did he say?”

“That you were a real piece of work,” Darkwing said, prodding him sharply in the chest. “I did my due diligence, Duck Avenger. You had your fun ten years ago, but now it’s time to leave the crime fighting to the real heroes.” 

Donald laughed. It was almost word for word the same speech he’d found a traffic cam recording of Darkwing giving to Gizmoduck. He can't help but poke a little fun. “‘Real heroes’, huh? And here I thought you were Gizmoduck’s sidekick.”

 _“Sidekick?”_ Darkwing sputtered, quickly losing any air of gravitas. “I’ll have you know that I’m two—no, _three_ times the hero that flying toaster oven will ever be.”

“Word of advice, Hero?” Donald replied, still laughing a little. “Make your smoke bombs harder to steal.” 

The rooftop was subsumed in a cloud of purple gas, and Donald made his escape as Darkwing stumbled around blindly, hurling obscenities at his retreating figure. 

That was five months ago. 

Now Donald arrives outside the warehouse Darkwing and Gizmoduck were sent to, a dilapidated-looking structure preceded by a more dilapidated-looking pier on the fringes of St. Canard’s harbor. It starts to rain as soon as he touches down, worsening his visibility and dampening any sounds that might give away the location of heroes and F.O.W.L. agents alike. 

At least until someone grabs him by the front of his uniform and slams him against the nearest wall. 

“What do you think you’re doing here?” Darkwing Duck hisses in his face. He’s soaking wet, rainwater dripping off the brim of his hat. His shadowed eyes glint sharply as flint behind his mask. 

“Sorry, am I encroaching on your turf again?” Donald replies dryly. 

Darkwing slams him against the wall again. “Shut _up,"_ he says. “Do you have _any_ idea what you almost just cost me?” 

From their first meeting, Donald surmised that Darkwing’s emotions were transparent and easy to manipulate. His ego motivated him, not unlike an actor in a play, and it was the spotlight he craved more than anything else. Though not a bad hero, he was too green to be considered much of a threat. 

The Darkwing Duck that stands before him now is not the one he met five months ago. He has a couple of inches on Donald that he hadn't realizef before and Darkwing uses them to his advantage now, looming over Donald as he pins against the wall. His features are contorted in fury, not the insipid annoyance of the rooftop so long ago, and his hands are trembling where they grip Donald’s uniform. He’s terrified, but not for himself. 

Donald can admit that he misjudged him all those months ago. 

He raises his hands, palms open. “It’s going to be okay.”

Darkwing laughs, a sound hoarse and embittered. “You don’t understand. I let Gizmoduck go in there alone. I haven't heard from that self-sacrificing idiot for half an hour. And I...I _can’t_ go in, they’ll—” He cuts himself off, tearing his gaze away to blink hard at a puddle by Donald’s right foot. 

Donald reaches up to carefully clasp Darkwing’s wrist. “She’s safe,” he says quietly. “Your daughter’s safe.”

Darkwing’s eyes go wide. He lets go of Donald abruptly, stumbling back a step. “How...how could you possibly know that?” 

“Do you think I’d be here if there was a kid in danger?” Donald replies, fishing a burner phone out of one of the pouches on his belt. Beakley is the only contact on it, and he dials her number before offering the phone to Darkwing. 

He reaches out slowly to take it, his hand shaking badly. Pressing it hard to his ear, Darkwing turns his back on Donald as the phone begins to ring. His shoulders remain high and tight with tension and he stands utterly still in the frigid rain until the call is answered. Donald watches him jump when a voice speaks faintly on the other end. 

“22?” Darkwing says, voice shaking. “Is she…?” He makes a sound like he’s had the breath knocked out of him and slumps against the nearest wall. “G-Gos?” he says. His voice is wrecked. 

Donald turns around to give Darkwing some semblance of privacy. 

“Oh, sweetheart...are you hurt? Just bumps and bruises….Sweetie, of course I’m okay—no, of course I didn’t do anything stupid.” Darkwing’s laughter is thick with tears. “Where are you right now?...On your way to McDuck’s? I see how it is; living it up without your old man, huh?” 

Darkwing is silent for a moment.

“Yeah, I’ve gotta go do superhero stuff," he murmurs. "Listen to Mrs. Beakley, eat whatever junk food you want. Yes, even Louie’s Pep. I’ll be there soon, okay? I love you, Gosalyn.” 

Donald turns around at the crack of the burner phone being snapped in half. Darkwing’s head is bowed, the wide brim of his hat hiding his expression from view. 

“Thank you,” he says stiltedly. “I really...I don’t know what to say. Gos, she’s…she’s my whole world. If anything happened to her…”

Donald steps forward and squeezes Darkwing’s shoulder. “I have kids too,” he says. The Duck Avenger’s life beyond the mask is something he’s only ever disclosed to Gloria Cabrera and Uno, but he knows that if anyone will understand it’s a fellow father. “Believe me, I wouldn’t have come out here without making sure she was safe.”

Darkwing looks up at him, blinking in surprise. Whatever he sees in Donald’s face has him nodding, and he scrubs a hand down his face. 

“Okay,” Darkwing says. “I guess we’d better go rescue Gizmoduck now.”

“And save the world if we’re lucky,” Donald replies. 

  
  


Donald enters the warehouse alone, Darkwing having slipped away to make his own grand entrance elsewhere. The interior of the warehouse is as ramshackle as the outside, dingy and dark, with one notable exception. In the center of the cavernous space, rotting wooden floorboards have been torn away in a twenty-five foot square expanse to reveal the massive door to S.H.U.S.H. 's weapons vault embedded in the ground. 

Agent Steelbeak and half a dozen F.O.W.L. Eggheads are clustered around the safe. Two are equipped with cutting torches and sparks fly in the darkness as they painstakingly work to breach the thick steel door. The other four stand guard with guns that look as though they’ve been reverse-engineered from Moonlander tech. Steelbeak is in the middle of the room, holding a regular machine gun, and tapping his foot impatiently. 

There’s no sign of Gizmoduck. 

“How much longer is this gonna take?” Donald can hear Steelbeak demand as he creeps closer, keeping to the shadows offered by the rows of crates scattered throughout the warehouse, all of them caked in dust. 

“A few more minutes, sir,” says one of the Eggheads wielding a cutting torch. 

“Ugh,” Steelbeak says, “well hurry it up, will you? I’ve got a dinner reservation at nine.” He turns and approaches the tarp-covered crates and equipment behind him. Fishing a small remote out of his pocket, he presses his thumb on one of its shiny silver buttons.

“What about you, hero? How’re you holding up?”

The equipment shifts, until the tarp covering it falls away completely. A massive machine slowly turns around on creaking metal limbs to reveal Gizmoduck stuck fast to what looks like a giant flat magnet. The armor is badly singed and his visor is cracked, but Fenton’s scowl is unhindered. 

“Ooh, the silent treatment,” Steelbeak says, laughing a truly awful, nasal laugh. “How original. Sorry I don’t have time to pry that armor off you right now. Maybe I’ll find a giant can opener next to the weapons of mass destruction.”

“You won’t get away with this,” Fenton snaps. 

Steelbeak rolls his eyes. “‘You won’t get away with this’?” he repeats. “Seriously? I hate that cliché. Is it too much to ask that one of you have a little style? A little _panache_?” 

A cloud of purple smoke erupts in the middle of the vault door, sending the Eggheads with the cutting torches scrambling back in alarm.

“I didn’t mean _this_ idiot!” Steelbeak exclaims as the purple smoke billows around their feet.

“I am the terror that flaps in the night,” Darkwing’s voice booms from everywhere and nowhere all at once. “I am the sour note in the sonata of crime!” 

“Do I have to do everything myself?” Steelbeak demands of the stunned Eggheads. “Shoot the smoke!” 

“I am...Darkwing Duck!” 

He appears, cape thrown back, standing on a large crate above a pair of armed Eggheads. Darkwing descends upon them with a foot in the center of each of their backs, slamming them to the ground hard. They’re immediately knocked unconscious. 

“Darkwing!” Fenton cries, straining against the magnet’s hold on his suit. “You need to get out of here!”

“You should listen to the tin man, Duncewing,” Steelbeak leers, bringing his machine gun to bear. “We still have the kid! Do you know what Pine’ll do to her when she learns you broke our deal?”

Darkwing dispatches the two other armed Eggheads with brutal efficiency, sweeping his leg under their feet and punching them hard enough in the face to shatter their blank white masks. Ignoring the weaponless pair, he turns to advance on Steelbeak. 

“Do you want to know what I’m going to do to you for laying a finger on the girl in the first place?” Darkwing asks, his voice low with menace. 

From his hiding place in the shadows, Donald privately admits to relief at not being on the receiving end of Darkwing’s ire tonight. He knows that were he in the other hero’s place, his retribution would be merciless. 

Steelbeak fires on Darkwing, but the bullets bounce harmlessly off of his cape as he raises over his head and body. He ducks beneath the spray and kicks the gun out of Steelbeak’s hands, sending it skidding across the floor. One of the weaponless Eggheads starts to reach for it but Donald drags them into the shadows before they can so much as touch it. He piles their unconscious bodies beside him as Darkwing knocks Steelbeak’s head back with a solid uppercut, sending the rooster stumbling backward. He trips on the body of one of his Eggheads and lands on his backside. 

“Darkwing, listen to me,” Fenton says as Darkwing grabs Steelbeak by the front of his expensive looking white suit, peeling him off the floor. “You need to get out of here. It’s a trap!” 

Steelbeak grins, his left eye already beginning to swell with a tremendous black eye. “Should’ve listened to him when you had the chance,” he says. He pulls his hand out of his pocket, waving the silver remote Donald saw earlier. “You didn’t think F.O.W.L. would just send one agent and a handful of goons, did ya?”

“No!” Fenton shouts. 

The machine he’s stuck to begins to move again, this time unfolding to reveal a robot with two large powerful legs that double it in size, raising Fenton and the main pod shaped body fifteen feet in the air. With Fenton on the face of it as a human shield, a pair of large automatic cannons emerge on either side. 

“Say hello to the GI-CU2,” Steelbeak says, as its canons begin to hum. 

Darkwing drops Steelbeak and throws himself behind the nearest rows of crates as the GI-CU2 starts firing, the blasts leaving craters in the concrete floor of the warehouse. Donald hunkers down as well, raising his X-transformer shield to protect himself from any stray blasts. He sees Steelbeak struggle to his feet and dash out a side door, and though it grates at him to let him go, they have more pressing concerns at the moment. 

Namely, their survival. 

Donald pokes his head out from behind his covert when there’s a pause in the hail of blasterfire and makes a dash for where Darkwing is hiding. 

“Thanks for joining the party,” Darkwing grunts, fiddling with the attachment to his gas gun. 

“You were doing fine ‘till the killer robot came out,” Donald replies. 

Speaking of which, the GI-CU2 hasn’t resumed firing. The sound of its thudding footsteps grows nearer, and a glance reveals it’s making its way toward the center of the warehouse. 

“Talk to me, Gizmoduck,” Darkwing yells, “what’s it doing?”

“I think it’s heading for the vault!” Fenton answers. “But a machine like this—it isn’t equipped with the precision tools needed to get inside. I think it means to destroy the vault, so that nobody gets the weapons and—”

“And we get blown sky high in the process,” Darkwing finishes for him. He looks up at Donald. “So,” he says. “What’s the plan?”

Donald blinks. “You’re asking me?”

“You’re the reason my daughter’s safe,” Darkwing replies. “As far as I'm concerned you already saved my life once tonight.”

It’s been a long time since the Duck Avenger worked with someone who trusted him. The responsibility settles over his shoulders like a weight, unfamiliar but not entirely uncomfortable. 

Donald nods. “Okay,” he says, “obviously priority one is getting Gizmoduck down from there. I can distract the bot while you get up there and free him.”

Darkwing affixes a grappling hook attachment to his gas gun with a small grin. “Let’s get dangerous,” he replies. 

As one, they dash out from behind their hiding place. Darkwing goes for GI-CU2’s legs, firing his grappling hook at one of its struts. Donald runs directly in front of it. 

“Over here, you Roboduck ripoff!” he shouts, waving his arms over his head. He feels ridiculous, and half-hopes the robot won’t even register him as a threat. 

Of course, the GI-CU2 slows its advance to peer down at him with a single red eye. It gives Darkwing the chance to scale its side and reach Gizmoduck lying on its front. 

“Is that the Duck Avenger?” Fenton exclaims, incredulous. 

GI-CU2’s red eye emits a laser sight bigger than Donald’s head that lands squarely on his chest. 

“Uh oh,” he says, activating his shield’s thruster.

Donald takes off a split second before the GI-CU2 fires, its blast singeing the edge of his cape. While the warehouse is wide, with a high ceiling, it doesn't offer much when it comes to maneuverability in flight. The GI-CU2 fires on him relentlessly, blowing holes in the warehouse’s walls and ceiling. It forces Donald to fly erratically to avoid volleys and single bursts, relying on his suit’s own defense system to tell him when to drop and rise and roll left or right. 

A quick glance reveals that Darkwing has yet to free Fenton from the suit. In all likelihood, the GI-CU2’s magnet did something to the Gizmosuit’s components to make it impossible for even Fenton to remove it. 

Donald is well aware that he can’t keep up this game of cat and mouse forever. Neither can he stop and allow the GI-CU2 to blow up S.H.U.S.H.’s deadly weapons cache with who knows how many lives at stake. When it comes to S.H.U.S.H. scientists, he wouldn’t put it past them to hide an unstoppabomb in there. 

Which leaves Donald with one course of action, to his great reluctance. 

“Darkwing,” he yells as he dips closer to the the GI-CU2. “I have an idea. Be ready to grab Gizmoduck and jump!”

He distantly hears Darkwing and Fenton exclaim, _“What?!”_ as he makes a sudden u-turn in midair. Dropping down from thirty feet up, he primes the EMP device in his X-Transformer shield. He figures that if it can short out highly advanced Moonlander tech, a plain old Earther robot shouldn’t be too much of a hassle if he sets it on the highest setting. You know, hopefully.

“This is gonna hurt,” he says, right before his shield makes impact with the GI-CU2’s hull. 

The collision rattles the bones of his arm, radiating through the rest of his body. The EMP blast spreads outward from his fist, sending the GI-CU2 juddering on its struts and making sparks burst out from its seams. Whatever internal battery powers its giant magnet shorts out and the suit falls apart around Fenton as its release button is finally capable of being enabled. Darkwing catches him, and he fires his grappling hook at one of the ceiling beams to avoid being crushed by the GI-CU2 as it begins to collapse. 

Either as a malicious final act or just the latest example of spectacular Duck luck, one of its massive cannon arms swings in Donald’s direction. He’s just pushed off the robot’s side, hovering with his weakened X-Transformer Shield, when it clips him hard in the side. His shield, heavily drained by the EMP blast, is unable to let him course-correct. 

With nothing to stop him, Donald batted across twenty feet and slams into the far wall. 

He doesn’t realize he’s been knocked out until he awakens hazily to the sound of voices. 

“Please don’t tell me we killed the Duck Avenger. My _Mamá_ will be so disappointed with me if he’s dead.”

There are hands at his wrist and on his throat, but Donald is aware of them only distantly. He feels very far away, his mind struggling to process the words he’s hearing. At the moment, his connection to his body is tenuous and fuzzy at best. 

“Well it wouldn’t be on us, it was the killer robot,” another voice says, this one much closer. “And you can save the eulogy. He’s alive.”

“But he’s not waking up,” the first voice replies, sounding worried. “He could have internal injuries. If they hadn’t drained my suit I could scan him, but…”

“I’m checking him for a concussion,” the second voice cuts in. “Call S.H.U.S.H., tell them we’ve got an agent down.”

There are hands on Donald’s mask this time, and that’s the final straw that sends him rocketing back to consciousness. His hand snaps out, wrapping around the wrist of whoever is leaning over him. They give a short scream, which does wonders for the headache that chooses that instant to slice through the center of his forehead, so painful it nearly sends him careening back into unconsciousness. 

“Avenger,” Fenton exclaims somewhere to his left as he struggles to open his eyes. “You’re alright!” 

Donald finds Fenton and Darkwing peering down at him in varying states of joy. The former looking like he could cry, and the latter clutching his wrist to his chest like he’s waiting for Donald to lunge at him again. Feeling like a giant robot threw him into a wall, he just closes his eyes and groans. _"_ _Ugh_.” 

“‘Alright’ being a relative term,” Darkwing says. 

“I’m calling for an ambulance as we speak,” Fenton assures him, holding a phone to his ear. “You’ll be fixed up in no time.”

“No,” Donald mutters. Though it makes his entire torso flare in pain akin to it being set on fire, he forces himself to sit up. “No,” he says again, arms shaking beneath him. “No hospital. No S.H.U.S.H.”

He can’t risk his identity getting out, much less to anything S.H.U.S.H. affiliated. Beakley would catch wind of it immediately, retired or no, which means that Scrooge would know and then it would only be a matter of time before Della and the kids knew too. Forget trying to guarantee their safety, he wouldn’t even be capable of guaranteeing himself ten seconds of peace and quiet. 

“You need medical attention,” Fenton insists. 

Donald shakes his head and immediately regrets it when his vision swims dangerously. He looks up, blinking slowly as Fenton’s worried expression comes into focus. “Your mom…” he mutters. Black spots pepper his vision and he knows he only has a few moments of consciousness left. “Your mom, she’s…”

“Is he trying to make a ‘yo momma’ joke right now?” Fenton demands. “How hard did you hit your head?” 

Donald reaches out with his remaining strength and grabs him by the front of his shirt. “Take me...to her,” he forces out through clenched teeth. “Trust her.”

“Avenger, you need to calm down,” Fenton says. He drops the phone to clutch at Donald’s shoulder as he starts to slump forward. “My _Mamá_ might like you and all, but I don’t think she’d be too happy if you bled out on her couch.” 

Donald turns and locks eyes with Darkwing, who’s been watching him warily. “It’s not my life I’m worried about,” he says, without looking away. He knows Darkwing understands his meaning by the subtle widening of his eyes. 

“If the Duck Avenger doesn’t want to go to the hospital then he doesn’t go to the hospital,” Darkwing says firmly. “I’ll have Launchpad bring the Thunderquack around. I hope your mom doesn’t mind unexpected guests, Cabrera.”

Fenton groans. “Oh, yeah, she loves them. Especially at three a.m.” 

Unconsciousness drags Donald back under, blackness crawling over his vision at the speed of trickling molasses. However, it’s strange to welcome oblivion with the assurance that for the first time in a long time, the Duck Avenger isn’t alone. 

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now with INCREDIBLE [fanart](https://moonraven-sparrow-summerpalette.tumblr.com/post/614884295763427328/mighty-ant-writes-good-and-you-should-read-her/)  
> 


End file.
